Binder
The metrics trap
The loop: teams need to demonstrate value, demonstrating value requires metrics, metrics create incentives, incentives shape behavior, behavior optimizes for the metric not the user. The result is enshittification — products get progressively worse while the metrics look fine.
PE runs the same loop. EBITDA becomes sacred as exit approaches. Not because it measures company health — it often doesn’t. Because it’s the exit metric. So the company restructures around it. Cut R&D (immediate EBITDA improvement, delayed product death). Raise prices aggressively (immediate revenue, delayed churn). Everything visible to the metric gets optimized. Everything invisible to it gets sacrificed.
Same thing in OKRs. The organizations with the most rigorous OKR processes often have the least actual strategic clarity. The OKRs become the work. Writing them, reviewing them, grading them. The actual customer problem goes un-thought-about.
The cure is principles, not better metrics
Kent Beck’s example: “don’t interrupt unless explicitly asked.” That can’t be A/B tested. It can’t be put in an OKR. It requires someone in leadership to say “we don’t do this” and hold the line without data.
The PM version is the waiter problem. If PM is measured on responsiveness — how fast tickets are turned, how many stakeholders are satisfied — the metric will be hit. And the roadmap will be whatever the sales org demanded last week.
Measure what matters. But know that measurement changes behavior. And behavior changes what you are. At some point, you have to have principles. Not metrics. Principles.